“We aren’t going to surrender,” Scarlet said. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. She and Ange were the only ones left standing. The rest of the mages were slumped over or on their knees, exhausted from their attempt to work the magus stone. Barek was also on the ground, his eyes glazed over. He’d lost his struggle against Riordan’s magic. Jayden had snapped completely. She sat on the ground, rocking back and forth, mumbling something incomprehensible to herself.

“Most of your friends have already given up,” Riordan said. The vortex of magic surrounding him grew and Scarlet could feel it swiping at her, beginning to drain her energy. “Fighting me will only cause you both more pain.”

Ange gritted her teeth. “If I die, I’ll die on my feet.”

“Years ago, I would have been happy to kill you,” Riordan said. “But now, that would just be a waste. You mages are all worth keeping, you’ll join my grid and feed me your power.”

The last thing I need is another god trying to use me. Scarlet summoned energy from her deepest depths, every last scrap of power she had left. I’m strong enough now, I have to be. With all her might, she thrust a concentrated ball of flame at Riordan.

He held up a hand to meet the fireball. It exploded into harmless sparks at his fingertips. The remaining embers were sucked into his vortex of power, quickly fading from red-hot to charcoal, cold and useless.

Scarlet felt Ange drawing power to make her own attack, but before she could release a volley of energy bolts, Riordan struck each of them with a swift blast of energy. The one aimed at Scarlet struck her directly in the gut. She toppled backward and crashed onto the floor, winded. She didn’t get the chance to even sit up before Riordan landed a follow up blow, a blast of magic that pushed her against the tunnel wall, smashing her head against the magus stone.

Reality faded out. She came in and out of consciousness as soldiers came to take them all the rest of the way down to the prison. When she managed to pry her eyes open, her vision was doubled. Do I have a concussion? For a split second, she thought of how Dante could heal her, if he were here—

But he wasn’t.

She had finally accepted that she couldn’t do this alone, but now she was alone, not just in her heart but truly and wholly alone. Ange and the rest had been dragged away, she was the last one left to be taken to the prison.

A soldier came for Scarlet and hoisted her over his shoulder. Desolation washed over her as he carried her roughly down the tunnel. She wanted to see if they had gotten to the cells, but her head spun in dizzy circles every time she tried to open her eyes.

After a couple minutes, her captor tossed her back onto the ground. She bit her tongue as she landed, and the metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth. Her head hurt so badly from the whiplash of being thrown that she couldn’t even hear properly, ears ringing sharply.

How many times could she dance this close to death, yet avoid that fate? She spat out a glob of blood. Not many more, it seemed.

“Sit up.”

Before Scarlet could even process the words, a swift kick to her stomach disabled her further. Pain flashed through her body, she coughed and hacked trying to get air back into her lungs.

“I said, sit up.”

Breathing ragged, she managed to pull herself up. Riordan himself looked down on her. She spat a mouthful of blood at him.

“You little—” He grabbed a fistful of her hair, and Scarlet screeched as he pulled her up to her feet. Face to face, he snarled at her. “I’d kill you right now, if I didn’t need you.”

He dragged her by hair and arm to the back of the cell, where spikes of magus crystal protruded from the wall. He spun her so her back faced the spikes.

“If Kiera hears you scream, maybe she’ll finally stop holding out on me.” He shoved Scarlet to the ground, then with a foot pressed against her chest pushed her backwards into the spikes. The pointed crystals pierced into her skin across her upper back. The additional pain this brought caused her vision to tunnel, and she thought she might pass out again.

Then, it got worse. Her magic rushed out of her, drawn out by the crystal as it met with her blood. Suddenly, she was drained of energy, a dry husk. Sick to her stomach and utterly void, she couldn’t move a muscle. Riordan might want her to scream, but she doubted she had the energy to do such a thing.

“Welcome to my grid of mages.” Through her off-kilter vision, she could tell Riordan was grinning, his wolfish teeth bared at her. “Once your mother gives up the amulet, I’ll be able to channel all of the energy stored in the crystal down here into myself from anywhere. Between the power I drain from you mages, and from Death… the other gods, they’ll have no chance against me, not this time. Soon, all of Nymandia will be under my control.”

Riordan was barefooted. Scarlet now understood why. He was drawing the magic out of the crystal into himself through his feet. He was draining the mages energy into the crystal, then using it to supercharge himself.

If he had the power to do this from anywhere, and he really did want to break the truce… then, the Magus War would begin anew. Scarlet prayed her mother would be able to keep whatever amulet Riordan needed safe from his grasp. But, now I’m here. Riordan is right, this could change everything if she won’t let me get hurt.

Scarlet strained to move, to get up, to do anything—the best she could manage was to wiggle a toe.

“You’re just a little girl. Did you really think you stood a chance?”

Riordan was right. She was alone, and she couldn’t stop him. Not before, not now. Her magic was drained, her body lethargic. Blood trickled down her back. She could feel one of the spikes driving into her scar, the wound Riordan nearly killed her with. With each shallow breath she took, the agony pulsated from that point.

You aren’t alone.

Riordan flinched at the voice, evidently hearing it as clearly as Scarlet did.

I’m here.

The voice wasn’t coming into her ears, but rushing into her from the crystal piercing her skin. It was warm, and familiar, something she had missed for so long.

“Mom?” she whispered, the word her mouth had long yearned for. Her emotions spilled open, her eyes filling with tears.

Scarlet. I’m here.

“Shut up!” Riordan clenched his fists. “You’ll have some time with your daughter soon, I promise you that.”

You have everything you need to defeat Riordan.

“I don’t have anything,” Scarlet said. Her words were quiet, but she felt them pulse out through the crystal. “There’s nothing.”

Trust me. I’ve given you everything you need.

What had her mother given her? She hadn’t taught her magic, and even if she had, her powers were drained.

It’s time.

It was a different voice. Dante? It couldn’t be. He was dead. Yet—if his soul was caught in the stream of souls… or maybe she was just imagining it as she faded away. Everything hurt, but it was becoming dull, detached.

Scarlet, it’s time.

What had he told her, the day they’d lured Riordan? She had to be the one to kill Riordan, she had to use a magus weapon.

And suddenly, she understood.

Riordan snorted. “What cruel hope your mother gives you.” He couldn’t hear Dante, then. His voice was just for her, wherever it had come from.

Riordan leaned down and grabbed Scarlet by the chin, forcing her slack head to look up at him. A tear was running down her face. “I don’t need you to cry. I told you, I need you to scream.”

His power flowed into her. Scarlet felt her muscles reactivate, and tense. It began to feel similar to Death’s compulsions—he was trying to control her body, to force her to scream. She fought it, trying to retreat from his internal grasp. Then, the tendrils of energy within her became barbed. She yelped as a thousand thorns of pain ran through her.

No, don’t scream, don’t let him win. She had to get free of the magus stone spikes in her back. If she could stop her energy from being drained, maybe she could get out of this. She took a slow breath, acclimating to the pain Riordan was inflicting. Focus. You can do this. She looked down again at Riordan’s bare feet. How was it that he could draw energy out of the crystal, while it stole her energy? There must be some way she could reverse the flow.

“That’s not enough for you?” Riordan asked. His hand balled into a fist, and the internal thorns of pain doubled in their agony. They began to rotate, and Scarlet felt as if her insides were being shredded to pieces. This time, she couldn’t help it; she let out a scream in earnest.

Is the pain only a feeling, or is he really killing me? It would be so easy to let unconsciousness take her, whether it be a permanent escape or not. But if she let go now, she might not get another chance. She would be dead, or Riordan could get the amulet. I have to end this, and I have to do it now.

She was too weak to manipulate the magus crystal. But maybe she didn’t have to do it by herself. Closing her eyes, she reached for her mindscape, her quiet place, the place where Dante had drawn her back from the stream of souls.

She fell into the snowy landscape. In the distance, she could sense her body and the torrent of agony Riordan was putting it through. Perhaps she was even still screaming. But this place was separate from her physical form, it was a place of refuge. Her breath was visible in front of her, the chill from the air biting into her skin. She looked around. No longer was the snow around her pristine and untouched. There were tracks—exactly what she’d been hoping for.

She could hear Riordan’s words faintly, in reality. “Passed out, have we?” Her body was slumped and still. He slapped her across the face, almost jolting her back to physical reality. She held on tight, locked on to the tracks, and regained her focus.

The footprints in the snow were easy to follow, but she had to move quickly. She couldn’t keep herself safe and separate from the pain Riordan was inflicting forever.

The landscape rushed by her as she raced along the path the tracks laid out for her, wet clumps of snow kissing her face as she went. Scarlet braced her physical body against Riordan’s blows as he tried to wake her, pain threatening to pull her away from her mind.

And then, she was there, at the banks of the stream of souls. Here, it was warm, the air electric. Trepidation rushed through her as she approached, waded in, spirits of the dead rushing around her feet. “Dante?” she called.

“I’m here,” he said, echoing the words of her mother. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel his presence.

“I want to save you, bring you back, I promise I will, but—” She took a ragged breath. “Before I can, I need your help again.”

“I’m with you.”

Thrust back into her body, Scarlet cried out as Riordan kicked her in the gut once more. She spat out the blood that had filled her mouth, and looked up at the god, the man who had captured her patron god, killed her best and only friend, and tortured her mother.

She was strong again. Her mother was close, Dante’s spirit was with her, helping her reverse the grid Riordan had built. The crystals that dug into her flesh grew warm, and then searingly hot as energy rushed out of them and into her body.

Fire was alive and well in her blood. She opened her mouth, and this time instead of blood, she exuded a jet of flames. Riordan yelped and stepped back. Scarlet pulled herself away from the wall of spikes, the scar Riordan had given her pulsating with the magic that had been injected into her body through it. As she stood, she drew the knife from her boot sheath.

She leapt at Riordan, her full weight catching him off-guard and throwing him to the floor. She landed on top of him, glad to be doing the winding rather than being the winded for once.

“This is for all the pain you’ve wrought.” Scarlet plunged the dagger into his throat.

He gurgled, then went limp. The energy from his body rushed into the dagger, its hilt growing searing hot. When the transfer was complete, Scarlet withdrew the dagger from Riordan’s throat. It was burning her fingers, but she held it tight regardless.

The obfuscation was broken—even coated in blood, it was clear the dagger was made from magus crystal, not the metal that her mother had disguised it to be.

The missing sixth weapon. Her mother had secretly entrusted it to her. Now, filled with Riordan’s soul, the dagger gleamed with a bright white light.

Scarlet. You did it.

Her mother’s voice brought tears to her eyes once more.

“I’m coming to set you free,” Scarlet promised. “Tell me where to find you.”